OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a graphics standard and API which is platform independent and available for desktop, workstation and mobile devices. It is designed to provide hardware-accelerated rendering, and hence gives greatly improved performance over traditional software rendering. OpenGL is used for applications like CAD software and computer games. The OpenGL standard, as well as OpenGL ES, is controlled by the Khronos group.
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is an API used to interact with GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). Originally developed by SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc.) in the early 90's, the current API is being developed by the Khronos Group.
OpenGL is platform independent and available for desktop, workstation and mobile devices. It is designed to provide hardware-accelerated rendering and is typically used for applications such as CAD software and computer games.
The opengl tag should only be used for questions about desktop OpenGL. OpenGL ES (OpenGL for Embedded Systems) and WebGL have their own tags - opengl-es and webgl. When posting in the opengl tag, remember to always specify your target OpenGL version in order to get more precise answers. The tags opengl-1.x, opengl-2.0 opengl-3, and opengl-4 exist for this purpose.
Official Documentation
- The Red Book - Tutorial GL
- The Orange Book - Tutorial for GLSL
- The Green Book - Tutorial for GLX
- The Blue Book - API references for GL (out of print; replaced by online reference pages)
- The White Book - Tutorial for WGL
Successor
Khronos Group announced vulkan API at GDC (Game Developers Conference) 2015. Vulkan, previously known as glNext or the "Next Generation OpenGL Initiative", is widely thought of as the successor to OpenGL and shares many similarities to the mantle API. It is a complete redesign aimed to unify the OpenGL and OpenGL-ES API's into one common API that will not be backwards compatible.
External resources
- OpenGL.org, the home of OpenGL.
- The OpenGL Registry is the source for OpenGL headers and specifications.
- The OpenGL Wiki, a wiki that contains OpenGL tutorials and documentation.
- The Khronos group, the consortium that controls the OpenGL standard.
- OpenGL Wikipedia Article
- The Vulkan API (OpenGL successor)
Unofficial Tutorials
- Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming
- Learn OpenGL
- ogldev modern OpenGL tutorial
- Overv's OpenGL guide
- Joe Groff's Intro to modern OpenGL
- Yet another modern OpenGL tutorial
- Lighthouse3D GLSL core tutorial
Books
OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.3 (8th Edition)
OpenGL Superbible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference (7th Edition)
Computer Graphics Through OpenGL: From Theory to Experiments, Second Edition
Release Dates
- OpenGL 1.0 - January 1992
- OpenGL 1.1 - January 1997
- OpenGL 1.2.1 - October 1998
- OpenGL 1.3 - August 2001
- OpenGL 1.4 - July 2002
- OpenGL 1.5 - July 2003
- OpenGL 2.0 - September 2004
- OpenGL 2.1 - July 2006
- OpenGL 3.0 - August 2008
- OpenGL 3.1 - March 2009
- OpenGL 3.2 - August 2009
- OpenGL 3.3 - March 2010
- OpenGL 4.0 - March 2010
- OpenGL 4.1 - July 2010
- OpenGL 4.2 - August 2011
- OpenGL 4.3 - August 2012
- OpenGL 4.4 - July 2013
- OpenGL 4.5 - August 2014
- OpenGL 4.6 - July 31, 2017
